Winding in and out of wooded drives and tree tunneled roads, as they went from the station, Nancy sensed something of the luxury she had so wondered about.
Yes, it was wonderful to cover distance that way, and the distance itself was wonderful, because Craggy Bluff was one of those works of Nature varied in detail from the finest ferns to the shaggiest giant oaks, and the very craggiest gray granite rocks to the daintiest pearl pebbles that studded the silvery beach.
“Oh, such glorious trees!” Nancy would exclaim as the car tore holes in the sunset’s shadows.
“Trees! If you like trees, Nance, just wait until daylight, and I show you huge black forests,” declared Rosalind, kindling merrily28 to Nancy’s enthusiasm.
“And when Uncle Frederic and Aunt—his wife,” Nancy corrected herself, “go away, will you be here all alone?”
“All alone! I wish I could be,” replied Rosalind, “then we could have sport; just you and I and, of course, a few servants. But, Nance, I never can get away from Margot, my old nurse, you know. Darling mother, my own mother, trusted her always, because she herself had been ill so long, so, of course, Margot’s sort of bossy yet. She’s as good as gold, but one doesn’t want gold bands around one’s neck all the time,” laughed Rosalind, as the car drew up to the broad veranda.
Even in the dusk, for it was now quite dark under the heavy foliage, Nancy could easily discern the massive outline of the big country house. She knew its story; how her Uncle Frederic had bought it from some old New England family just because it offered a seeming refuge for the first Mrs. Fernell, Rosalind’s mother, whose early invalidism had ended in leaving the girl so much alone among servants29 and wealth. Aunt Katherine had loved the big house which she had called Fernlode, because the ferns grew in paths and veins almost unbroken in their lines, and also because Fern was a part of their old family name.
“Here we are, Margot!” called out Rosalind, as a big woman came up smiling to that call.
She greeted Nancy happily, and at once the visitor understood why she was considered bossy, for she directed the man to take the bags and to do several other things all at the same time.
“Rosalind dear, you should have worn a sweater. See how cool it is—”
“A blessing, Margot dear. Haven’t we been roasting for days? Sweater! I just want to feel comfortable for a little while. Come on, Nance, I always run upstairs. Helps me reduce—”
And the puffing Rosalind executed a series of jumps, in lieu of running, which seemed too much to expect of her, and this bore out the fat girl’s good intentions.
30 “I do every earthly thing I can, you know,” confessed Rosalind, as they stood before an open door, “but I can’t see that it does one bit of good. I’m—hoping—you may have—a secret—recipe—” Breath giving out, Rosalind gave in, and sank down on a big chintz covered chair.
“I don’t see why you worry about being fat, Rosa,” said Nancy with real sincerity. “Here I’m too thin and mother keeps worrying about that all the time—”
“Oh, what an idea!” chuckled Rosalind. “We can be the Before and After sign—fat and thin, you know. Wouldn’t that be great?” and as she laughed Nancy remembered another familiar sign. It was to do with laughing and growing fat!
“Shall I change for dinner?” Nancy asked when the gale of mirth subsided and Rosalind stood before a mirror patting her turbulent hair.
“No-o-o!” drawled Rosa. “Just put a ribbon around your head and that’ll be all you need to do. Dad won’t be home tonight—he’s31 in Boston, and Betty” (she whispered this) “is never home when Dad’s away. So a ribbon will fool Margot, and after dinner—” A queerly pulled face, that made a pincushion out of Rosa’s features, finished the sentence. Evidently she had some important plans for after dinner.
As they “fussed up” Nancy noticed how really pretty Rosalind was. Her eyes were always laughing and they were blue, her mouth was always smiling and it was scalloped, and her hair was “gorgeous,” being a perfect mop of brown curls rather short but not bobbed. It was this head of hair that from baby hood had distinguished Rosalind, for her “lovely curls” were a matter of family pride to all but herself.
Her weight, however, could not be denied, even by one so favorably prejudiced as Nancy, for Rosalind Fernell was decidedly fat, as has been said before. She wore just now a one-piece dress of very brightly colored summer goods, with the figures so mixed up that Nancy remembered her brother Ted’s calling32 this style “circus clothes.”
Nancy, disregarding Rosalind’s suggestion for a ribbon around her head to make up a dinner costume, had managed to slip into the simple white voile that her mother was so solicitous about having exactly on top of her bag, so that she could slip into it quickly, and this with the yellow ribbon band around her dark hair completed, rather than composed, the costume.
“You look perfectly duckie,” declared Rosalind, giving her cousin a frankly admiring glance. “And I’m glad you did dress up, for maybe Gar will be over.”
“Who’s Gar?” asked Nancy.
“He’s my—lifeguard; I’d perish without Garfield Durand. He lives on the next pile of rocks and he’s more fun than a troop. You’ll love Gar, I’m sure. There’s Baldy calling dinner. Baldy is the butler, you know, and he’s the most perfect baldy you ever gazed at. Has a head like the crystal ball in the back yard.”
For a camp, which was really what this33 summer home was supposed to be, Nancy thought everything about her most elaborate. The house was as heavily built as any city house might be, and the big beamed ceiling in the long dining room, made her think of an old English picture. The butler, Thomas, called Baldy, by the irrepressible Rosalind, rather awed Nancy at first, but, unlike the butlers in fiction, he could smile, and he could bend and he was human, so that after her chair had been adjusted and her water poured, Nancy presently felt quite at ease and enjoyed, rather than feared, her surroundings. Margot sat at Rosalind’s side and Nancy was placed opposite. After all, she thought, one’s simple meals at home were no different from that being served, except that at home things came more promptly and—yes—perhaps they did taste a little better mother’s way. However, the soup was good and the chicken easy to eat, while the dessert was piled high with cream and Nancy ate it—to make her fat.
“Rosalind, you had better have—” Margot was objecting.
34 “Nop-ee, I’m going to have this,” interrupted Rosalind, who took the overly rich dessert in defiance of ounces more of the much detested fat, which were bound to follow.
“Mrs. Fred phoned that she was detained in the city and so could not be here to greet you, Nancy,” Margot said, as Thomas pulled out her chair, “but I’m sure Rosalind wants you all to herself, so Mrs. Fred need not be anxious.” This little pleasantry was followed up by an effusive reply from Rosalind, who couldn’t really seem to get close enough to Nancy for her own affectionate satisfaction.
“Oh, we’ll be all right, Margot,” she assured the tall woman with the unavoidable horn-rimmed glasses. “We’ve got oodles of things to talk about, and piles of things to do. You won’t mind if I let up on the exercise to-night, will you?”
“But you know, Rosie—”
“’Course I do, Margy,” and Rosalind coaxed prettily. “But I want to entertain Cousin Nancy—”
The smiling assent from Margot seemed35 unnecessary, for Rosalind was trooping off, with her arm around Nancy’s waist, and her laughter bubbling like the soap-suds Ted loved to blow out of his old corn-cob pipe.
Nancy couldn’t help thinking of her brother Ted, the boy now far away at camp, for, somehow, she was missing him in spite of all this strange adventure. He was always such a jolly little fellow. What a lark he would have had in this big place and how he would contrive to turn every little incident into a laugh or a chuckle? While Rosalind was speaking to the butler, and while she gave some message to Margot, Nancy had just a little time for ruminating. She wondered what her mother was doing. And how the long summer ahead would turn out for each of her small, intimate family.
“Come into my room,” said Rosalind at her elbow, as they once again had mounted the broad stairs. “It’s right next to yours—I thought you might be scary if I put you over in the guest room,” said the cousin, considerately.
36 “I should much rather be near you, thanks Rosa,” replied Nancy, meaning exactly what she said, for with real night settling down upon the mountains, a queer loneliness amounting almost to foreboding seemed to seize upon her.
“And you are never lonely out here?” she could not resist remarking, for it seemed to her Rosalind’s spirits were mounting higher each moment. She laughed at the slightest excuse, and appeared to Nancy somewhat over excited.
“Well, of course, sometimes I have been. But not since Gar came. He was abroad last summer, but now—why, he drives me every place when Margot and Chet think I’m—doing something else.”
This last piece of information was almost whispered to Nancy, and it was not difficult for her to guess that Rosalind indulged in pranks as well as in bubbling laughter.
“But you don’t really go out without your daddy’s knowing?” Nancy timidly asked.
“Bless the infant!” cooed Rosalind, “I do believe she’s a regular little darling, country37 coz,” and another demonstration accompanied that. “But I won’t shock you to death. I’m really quite harmless, and you see,” her face sobered for a moment, “all that I do concerns myself. I think I should have the privilege of enjoying myself, don’t you?”
“Why, yes, of course. That is—” Already Nancy found herself perplexed. What if Rosalind was as risky as she pretended to be; and if she, Nancy, would find it difficult to keep free from responsibility?
“You know Orilla, she’s the girl who used to live here, is too smart for words,” imparted Rosalind, as the two girls delayed in Rosalind’s beautiful golden room. “She believes she can help me to—to get thin” (there was wistfulness in this remark), “but Betty just can’t bear her. So, of course, I have to do lots of things on the sly.”
Instantly there flashed before Nancy’s mind the suggestion her mother had made concerning this girl, Orilla. And a suspicious, jealous girl is not less dangerous just because she happens to be young. In fact, thought38 Nancy, that would only make her less wise and more foolish.